Saturday, December 26, 1998

Fledgling churches are religious nomads

By Tara Dooley

Knight Ridder Newspapers

FORT WORTH, Texas -- For most of the week, United Artist Fossil Creek 11 is a temple where film-lovers can worship the art of moviemaking in stadium seating, with popcorn, candy and a choice of Hollywood's latest offerings.

But starting about 8 a.m. each Sunday, the movie house in north Fort Worth becomes a temple of a different kind.

Hours before the box office opens on moviedom's big day, pastor Paul C. Gomez, his wife, Teresa, and about 10 volunteers spend at least an hour replacing the traces of such films as "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" with the message of CrossRoads Church, a new and growing Baptist congregation.

"You get to see God's hand in it all," Teresa Gomez said. "It's so obvious when you're here in a movie theater and see it transformed."

For many starting churches, transformation is part of the ritual of Sunday-morning worship services. Without a place to call home -- and a desire to keep expenses down -- beginning congregations often seek temporary shelters that range from hotel boardrooms and school auditoriums to funeral homes and plastics factories.

Building a church certainly requires heavenly inspiration, pastors and congregants say. But before God is given his due by a new congregation at the start of each week, there are also earthly considerations. And that means that pastors and church volunteers often spend the early Sunday morning hours moving furniture, setting up sound equipment and turning lobbies into nurseries and Sunday-school meeting rooms.

"It is like birthing a baby," said Larry R. Taylor, pastor of The River, a church that is getting its start at the same theater as CrossRoads. "There are labor pains involved. It's worth it, but it's a lot of work."

Fellowship Church in Grapevine is probably North Texas' most visible example of a congregation for whom the hard work paid off.

Although the church has almost 6,000 members, it began in February 1990 in an Irving office complex with about 150 members, said senior pastor Ed Young.

When the congregation outgrew the office, it spilled over into the Irving Arts Center. Later, the congregation met at MacArthur High School, where professional movers were employed to help volunteers turn part of the school into a church, Young said.

In April, the congregation trekked 15 miles to its new 150,000-square-foot home on Texas 121 next to Grapevine Mills mall.

The process of fitting a growing congregation into various arenas for worship services took a lot of work, Young said.

"It was very, very labor intensive," he said. "The great thing about it was that early on, it gave our church a can-do spirit, a real pioneer spirit," Young said.

The challenges of starting a church vary depending on the circumstances, said Taylor, who is taking his second stab at starting a congregation. The River, which began in August when three couples started meeting in Taylor's home, moved its services to the movie theater about two months ago.

Taylor, who recently returned to the area after traveling through Texas and Louisiana as an evangelist, was pastor of a fledgling Baptist church in Livingston in East Texas in the 1980s. That church was affiliated with an older church that contributed money and congregants.

"In terms of resources, you usually have a little more available to you in terms of people and finances," Taylor said.

Similarly, the Rev. Michael Beaugh has the financial and emotional backing of the regional and national leadership of the Presbyterian Church. At least he does for the next five years, as he and a group of congregants build the membership of Southlake Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Southlake, Texas.

Although the new church has about 5 acres on Southlake Boulevard waiting for construction, the 120 members have met since mid-September at Johnson Elementary School in Southlake. The congregation hopes to be chartered by next summer and into its own building by the end of 1999, Beaugh said.

Although the elementary school has worked well for the church, "There are a lot of things you have to figure out," Beaugh said. "In fact, the whole thing, you have to figure out."

For example, Beaugh and church volunteers must coordinate details such as how to get into the locked building and where to set up props that range from the pulpit to changing tables for the nursery rooms.

For CrossRoads, the process of transforming a movie theater into a church begins about 8 a.m. each Sunday when Paul Gomez and volunteers arrive, dragging two trailers full of sound equipment and children's toys.

In the theater, volunteers hook up computer equipment and do sound checks. Meanwhile, Sonya Pannell of Hurst and Jessica Woodruff of North Richland Hills cover the movie theater carpets with more child-friendly -- and cleaner -- rugs. They set up child-size kitchens and unpack large plastic containers of blocks, dolls and plastic telephones.

The Pannells and Woodruffs are two of a handful of families, members of First Baptist Colleyville, that have joined forces with Gomez to start CrossRoads Church.

"I think it's neat to know you are in there on the ground floor to see God's work growing," Pannell said.

The goal of the new church is to reach out to young couples and singles, said Gomez, a former associate pastor at Colleyville Baptist Church.

At a recent Sunday service, Gomez took center stage wearing khakis, a black T-shirt and clunky black shoes. His presentation used computer images flashed onto a movie screen and videos of a prospective social service project.

"We are not out to cast away all tradition," Gomez said. "We do think there is room for a little more informal preaching."

In particular, Gomez said, the church aims to reach out to young people of all ethnic backgrounds, including those who do not regularly attend worship services. Meeting in a theater is one way to reach an audience that may be turned off by a white steeple and a pastor in a collar, he said.

"We are trying to create an environment where unchurched people ... will feel comfortable," Gomez said. "This theater is where they likely have been before. They know where the restrooms are and how to escape."

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(c) 1998, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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